Missive 6 – 2013

Life takes on a different shape as we are back “home” at Phetchabun. We are in our house, “Ron’s Place”, and enjoying the growth of the plants around it. The frangipani has grown and a bush/tree with beautiful red flowers that Colleen nurtured through a few setbacks with whipper-snippers is now huge. Another agave type of plant that had a slow start is now monstrous and we’ll have to cut some of it back to walk past it. We usually eat with the kids but on a couple of occasions we have cooked in our house and there-in lies a funny story. We were having pork chops and some stir-fried vegetables and Colleen poured some oil from a jar on the sink cupboard into the frying pan. It bubbled up straight away and we wondered if it was fresh so we used more oil from a new bottle. We sat down to a huge pork chop each and a beautiful pile of vegetables, but the first mouthful was absolutely awful. We had to leave the vegetables and persevere with the pork because although it was not good it was at least bearable. We concluded that the oil must have been rancid so before throwing it out Colleen put some on her fingers and then under water. It frothed up beautifully – just like the detergent it was!! For the Jews pork is unclean, but these couple of Gentiles had ensured that theirs wasn’t! Colleen had a great birthday made even better by Mum Whun, who was having her day off at her parents’ place in a nearby village, inviting us to lunch there. We love going there because it is a piece of genuine Thailand with traditional wooden housing set amongst coconut palms and “fair-dinkum jungle”. They, and mainly Whun’s Dad, had prepared a beautiful meal of soups, lap (spicy minced pork) and sticky rice. We sat outside on a wooden platform with the food in bowls amongst us, although Colleen was given a chair to sit in. A couple of dogs were in attendance as were a number of chickens who scratched around blissfully ignorant of the feet of one of their number sticking over the edge of one of the soup bowls. Whun’s Grandma, all of 84 years old, was eating with us and she chatted on endlessly telling us about various recent incidents, including falling over and hurting her arm. Much of this was obvious but Whun chipped in with a bit of translation here and there. We talked tobacco farming with Whun’s Dad in the shadow of drying tobacco from the recent crop, and her Mum shared a few health woes as well. They love to have us come and the language difference doesn’t seem to matter. It was such a special time and one of the reasons we love Thailand – don’t you wish you were here? That night we took our Whun and Why, Joop Jang (another girl from their house), Mum Whun and her sister Tip (who is now a carer at Ban Meata) into Phetchabun (40kms) for a birthday tea at the Pizza Company. The meal for 7 cost us about $50, pretty good by our standards but nearly a week’s wages for Tip. One of our reasons for being here is to attend the graduation ceremony for Why and 5 other of our Year 12 students attending the Kanchanar School in Lomsak. It is one of about a dozen of the “King’s Schools” and although there is a cost to attending this has been made possible through each student having a generous sponsor. Somchai and Cheewar had their sponsors here for the ceremony and of course we have an interest in Why. We were so proud of all them. The ceremony is held in a large elevated hall with fans all way round which have jets of water making a cooling mist in the hot conditions. Up the front there was a row of Buddhist monks and a podium lavishly decorated with flowers for the Headmaster to sit in. The school orchestra entertained the waiting parents with many tunes recognisable to Westerners. The students, about 150 of them marched in, spectacular in their dress uniforms and were seated in rows in alphabetic order. The top few students were seated in the front row, including our Why who was equal second. They began with a short Buddhist ceremony and while everybody held their hands in the wei position our 6 students stood with their hands by their sides declaring that they are Christians. It is good that the school, and the Buddhist society generally, is tolerant of other beliefs. In a highly regimented fashion and row by row the students made their way to the front and received their graduation certificates in a special blue folder. The Thais love photographs and it took about an hour after that to get the whole school photo as well as the little groups that gathered in front of the i-pads, the mobiles, and the more conventional cameras. After processing out of the hall they all made their way up to the quadrangle in front of the multi-storey school and marched in military fashion in front of the staff and dignitaries, all of whom were dressed in what looked like naval officer uniforms bedecked with medals and other regalia. The marching style is reminiscent of what we see on TV when the North Koreans parade although the leg does not go as high at the front. Eyes right and the salute happen as the parade passes the teachers on the steps of the school – very spectacular but maybe a bit over the top in our Western eyes. We took the kids out to lunch at a restaurant afterwards and we feasted regally on fish, tom yum soup, rice, and a variety of tasty pork, chicken and vegetable dishes in lovely sauces. The kids were very pleased to get out of their formal jackets, buttoned to the neck for the boys and worn with a tie for the girls. Each of the 6 kids is currently sitting what seems like an endless stream of exams, mostly entrance exams for university. I still haven’t come to grips with the complexity of the university entrance system here although every conversation I have reveals another nuance which makes it a bit clearer. Why is my best bet in this – she takes the time to patiently explain how it works with a dictionary in one hand to sort out the technical stuff. She is a marvel and we love her dearly. The very next day we prepared again for feasting at a gathering of Mercy International leaders and sponsors where we looked back over and celebrated the enormous changes and achievements of the 3 orphanages over the last 5 years. Colleen and I were charged with the table decorations so we went into Lomsak with our Whun to negotiate for 10 floral table arrangements and 2 large sheafs of flowers. We needed to pick them up on Saturday morning so we waited with some trepidation to see if that part of the negotiations had been understood. We needn’t have worried, they were beautifully done, looked stunning and the whole lot cost $60 – similar stuff in Australia we estimate would cost over $300. Colleen ended up supervising some of the food preparation to match the menu - the concept of separate courses is a bit lost on the Thais. It was a good night though, interrupted by a blackout because there was a rainstorm happening so for a while we ate by “mobile phone light” – torchlight is much easier to say! We started with some traditional Thai dancing by some girls from our school – their dance teacher is a man, well, at this stage he is but I understand he has other intentions and certainly his eyebrows and make-up indicated that he plans to bat for the other side! We then heard the stories of how each orphanage is going and how the farm, the community outreach programmes, the English language school at Sisaket, our own school, and the recently begun uniform sewing project is progressing. Unfortunately our time here is drawing to a close. We will be home in less than 2 weeks. Our Whun will graduate next year and she is eagerly looking forward to us coming for that. “If you do not come I cry, if you come I smile”, she is saying. We are so proud of her and her English – everyone in her house and in her class at school look to her when they are struggling with their English. So that looks like it as far as blogs go for 2013. If you have kept up, thanks for travelling the journey with me. I have appreciated and valued your thoughts and prayers. God bless Ron Colleen's birthday at Mum Whun's Colleen's birthday at Pizza Company the 6 graduates with one of their teachers We are so proud of them! The headgear of one of the Thai dancers